Ugly Betty Or Soap...y Betty?

Okay so the title sucks. I don't care. Ugly Betty sucks. I know, I know. You're saying to yourself right now: "Why am I reading this blog?" And maybe somewhere in there you're also saying to yourself: "Why do you know anything about Ugly Betty?" Well, the simple answer is I have a girlfriend, who watches a lot of TV. The longer answer is that I can't tune out ANYTHING so if there's loud noises around me I have to pay attention. It's a very big problem when I go out places.

Regardless of all that, I don't feel like Ugly Betty has to be a bad show, even though it is. It's just odd because it doesn't really seem to know what it is. According to Wikipedia, the show is a "dramedy" (god how I hate that term), and according to Netflix it's a TV Sitcom/Comedy. In reality, it is neither of those things. In reality it is a soap opera. Don't believe me? Take some of the plot from season 1. The show is about the eponymous character Betty, who as you may have guess from the title is not by any means the typical fashionista. Despite this she attempts to make it in the difficult world of fashion magazines. So the show, obviously deciding Ugly Better is not interesting enough, goes into a great deal of unnecessary information about her boss (Daniel)'s father who once had a wife and a mistress (whom he may have killed), and his other son, Daniel's brother, who faked his own death in order to have a sex change operation (I am not making this up) so that he/she can come back to the show and help a woman who's job at the magazine is rather unclear become editor-in-chief in a dramatic power struggle that doesn't really make sense to begin with. She seems to barely be able to handle what power and responsibilities she already has. She's also really gullible. So she wants more power? Yeah, great plan.

Now, I realize this is a show for women, but let's face it: not every woman likes soap operas. And even besides that, this is a show about a fashion magazine, meaning there was a really big chance to have lots of pleasing things available. The office could have been "fabulous," but instead looks like something out of Star Trek. They could have adorned the show with flamboyant gays in ridiculous outfits, instead they mostly reigned them in and you might actually have to be paying attention to tell they're gay. Maybe. Maybe not. They also could have had lots and lots of interesting clothing. Now, I realize I'm a guy and thus not the best person for this job, but too me most of the clothes look either like fashion disasters or too simple to really be noteworthy.

Of course, quite likely the show's creators were trying to appeal to as wide an audience as they could. Likely they were aware that there would be many people who, like me, are straight men watching a show about fashion because they have girlfriends. I realize this, and I understand that they've likely attempted to work the show into something more people could watch. But what's the point? I mean, really. In the end, the people who are going to keep coming back to your show, the people who going to be wanting to watch you show are going to be of a certain demographic, and you're doing as little as possible to appeal to those people? Really?

I know it's a bit late to be talking about this, what with the show already having been canceled, but the show's creators are still out there, no doubt, working on other projects. Maybe in the future, they can try to suck less at their jobs and maybe show a little focus. I bet not. Because TV is pretty much always going to suck.